Local culinary industry veterans Albert Chu and Patricia Huang have teamed up with talented local chefs to open a new takeout establishment – ChefBox – in South Pasadena, Calif. Nov. 28, 2017. With an array of prepared meal boxes filled with a variety of cuisines, ChefBox offers meals for lunch and dinner that can be quickly heated at work or at home. (Photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

What do you get when you combine 17 talented chefs, a variety of tasty dishes and two visionary entrepreneurs?

In South Pasadena that mix has resulted in ChefBox, a unique takeout establishment that offers high-quality meals for lunch and dinner that can be quickly heated up at home or at work. Co-founders Albert Chu and Patricia Huang certainly have experience to draw upon, as they were also instrumental in growing the popular 626 Night Market that’s held every summer at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia. It’s the largest summer Asian food festival in the U.S.

Local culinary industry veterans Albert Chu and Patricia Huang have teamed up with talented local chefs to open a new takeout establishment – ChefBox – in South Pasadena, Calif. Nov. 28, 2017. With an array of prepared meal boxes filled with a variety of cuisines, ChefBox offers meals for lunch and dinner that can be quickly heated at work or at home. (Photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

Local culinary industry veterans Albert Chu and Patricia Huang have teamed up with talented local chefs to open a new takeout establishment – ChefBox – in South Pasadena, Calif. Nov. 28, 2017. With an array of prepared meal boxes filled with a variety of cuisines, ChefBox offers meals for lunch and dinner that can be quickly heated at work or at home. (Photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

Local culinary industry veterans Albert Chu and Patricia Huang have teamed up with talented local chefs to open a new takeout establishment – ChefBox – in South Pasadena, Calif. Nov. 28, 2017. With an array of prepared meal boxes filled with a variety of cuisines, ChefBox offers meals for lunch and dinner that can be quickly heated at work or at home. (Photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

Local culinary industry veterans Albert Chu and Patricia Huang have teamed up with talented local chefs to open a new takeout establishment – ChefBox – in South Pasadena, Calif. Nov. 28, 2017. With an array of prepared meal boxes filled with a variety of cuisines, ChefBox offers meals for lunch and dinner that can be quickly heated at work or at home. (Photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

Chef Luis, right, drops off modern Puerto Rican cuisine prepared meals to ChefBox proprietor Albert Chu at the Fair Oaks Avenue location Nov. 28, 2017. Chu and Patricia Huang have teamed up with talented local chefs to open a new takeout establishment Ð ChefBox Ð in South Pasadena, Calif. With an array of prepared meal boxes filled with a variety of cuisines, ChefBox offers meals for lunch and dinner that can be quickly heated at work or at home. (Photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

Local culinary industry veterans Albert Chu and Patricia Huang have teamed up with talented local chefs to open a new takeout establishment – ChefBox – in South Pasadena, Calif. Nov. 28, 2017. With an array of prepared meal boxes filled with a variety of cuisines, ChefBox offers meals for lunch and dinner that can be quickly heated at work or at home. (Photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

Gaining momentum

ChefBox, 434 Fair Oaks Ave., opened a little more than two weeks ago and it’s already gaining momentum, according to Chu.

“These are all passionate chefs,” he said. “They make small batches and really focus on the quality of their ingredients. When people discover us they’ll usually try one sampler meal. And after they go through their tasting they see how this can work into their daily lives, so they’ll fill out their week’s meals.

“The trend that we’ve seen is they usually add two or three more meals to their order than the previous time.”

What’s in the boxes

Most customers are buying six to eight meals at a time, Huang said.The cuisine is varied, ranging from turkey lasagna and oxtail stew to chicken teriyaki tamanishiki rice and vegetables and spicy minced chicken basil. ChefBox also offers vegetarian and vegan dishes and specialty meals for children.

Meal boxes can be picked up at the store or ordered online. They also plan to launch a delivery service.

“Some of the dishes our chefs create sell out before we even open,” Huang said. “This is for people who might not have time to fix dinner. Our society is getting busier and busier. And with two-income, working families, the parents come home and are often too exhausted. And meal boxes that are past peak freshness are donated to local shelters, so nothing goes to waste.”

The meal boxes range in price from $7 to about $14, depending upon the dish. Each chef prices his or her own offerings.

The 626 Night Market connection

Chu said ChefBox is a natural extension of Night Market.

“We built this store for people like ourselves,” he said. “We’re often too busy to put a meal together, but we love really good food, we want that diversity and we want that convenience. We saw how many people come and enjoy the food at Night Market, so we wanted to create a brick-and-mortar version of that.”

The business also supports local chefs who often have limited outlets to prepare their food outside of catering or opening a restaurant, which can easily cost $200,000 or more.

Billie Sutton, a former Le Cordon Bleu chef who specializes in world cuisine, is one of the company’s chefs. She explained her approach.

“I couldn’t pick any one style of cooking that I would want to do all the time so I cook with ingredients from around the world,” she said. “I’ll use tropical fruits, spices and vegetables that we don’t use as much here in the states. But I represent American food, too.”

Sutton has catered for celebrities that include Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. She figures ChefBox will resonate with local foodies.

“I love the idea that there is a direct connection between the chef and the customer,” she said. “It goes from our hand to yours. I’m really impressed by Albert and Patricia and their passion for food. It’s a great idea.”

An already loyal customer

ChefBox customer Roseanne Hui is already hooked on some of the dishes.

“I really like the chicken satay garlic noodles and the pork belly adobo, but everything I’ve had from them is excellent,” the 25-year-old South Pasadena resident said. “I used to subscribe to HelloFresh, which provides you with a bunch of ingredients to add to your food. But I didn’t have time to cook and put all of the ingredients together. This is much easier and there’s not a huge difference between this and what I would normally spend getting groceries.”

Growing demand

Chef A.C. Boral creates modern Filipino dishes for ChefBox and said his dishes are selling fast.

“The demand is a lot more than I expected,” said Boral, 29, who lives in Long Beach. “I’ll have to play catch-up to meet that demand. I know a lot of the other chefs are doing well, too.”

Boral said there’s a big difference between the dishes he creates and the prepared foods shoppers buy at the supermarket.

“It’s the pride in whoever makes it,” he said. “If you go to the grocery store and get a Boar’s Head sandwich that was prepackaged and has been sitting there for two days … there’s not much love in that. This is our trade and craft.”

Chu and Huang plan to add more chefs to the mix and expand their business with more locations in the future.

Kevin Smith handles business news and editing for the Southern California News Group, which includes 11 newspapers, websites and social media channels. He covers everything from employment, technology and housing to retail, corporate mergers and business-based apps. Kevin often writes stories that highlight the local impact of trends occurring nationwide. And the focus is always to shed light on why those issues matter to readers in Southern California.